Lorena Duran

Mexico City, Mexico

Lorena Duran recently received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She had previously finished a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from George Mason University with a concentration in Painting and a Minor in Art History. Born in Mexico in 1985, Lorena was raised with a strong emphasis on an international identity; her parents encouraged extensive traveling and created multiple opportunities for Lorena to visit Western Europe, China, and Russia, among many places. Having attended the German School in Mexico City, she grew up learning German and Spanish simultaneously. At age 11, Lorena and her family migrated to the United States and settled in Newton, MA. There, she attended middle and high school where she continued her international education by taking up Russian and French. She participated in the Russian exchange her sophomore year in high school and after graduating in 2002, spent a semester abroad in an intensive language program at the Sorbonne University in Paris, France. In 2003, Lorena started her undergraduate education as a government major at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA.

Throughout her life, Lorena has followed a strong affinity to the fine arts and since age 7 attended extra-curricular art classes. In 2005, she changed gears and began a Major in Art and Visual Technology. Continuing her family values of receiving an international education through travel, in 2006 she attended the Cambridge University Intensive Art History Program in Cambridge, England. Not limiting her interests solely to art, however, Lorena has received a certification in Scuba Diving, Coral Reef Ecology Research and Underwater Archeology. She participated in a Field Study Program in the Bahamas where she helped with Underwater Fish Observation and Survey. She capped her undergraduate career with an internship in London, England at the Courtauld Institute and Gallery of Art, working as an assistant researcher at the Witt and Conway Libraries.

Although a painter at heart, Lorena has expanded her interest in art making by exploring new media. Including large-scale light installations in dark spaces, such as her BFA Thesis Exhibition, Luminescence, 2007, in Gallery 123. While attending graduate school in NYC, her work expanded into installations that questioned the role of the viewer as an active participant in art. These works included Meet you Shadow, 2009, Black/White=Grey, 2009, and The Pursuit of Happiness, 2010.

Searching for a change of pace, Lorena now lives in Suffolk, Virginia with her husband and two cats.